Intel Terminates Game Development, Sweeps Project Offset Off The Table

When we last checked in on Project Offset, the visually impressive game was facing an uncertain future. Intel recently released an update on PO's development status, but unfortunately it's not what we were hoping for. Having completely abandoned Larrabee as a GPU product, Intel saw no further reason to keep the dev team around.

Intel purchased Offset Software to improve our game development knowledge-base and to further Intel's visual computing technology development expertise, helping the company offer robust products, support, and tools to customers. With the recent changes in our product roadmap, some of the resources and technologies from the acquisition are being re-applied to help support new graphics related projects. Additionally, other Offset Software team members have moved onto other external projects outside the company.

It was a heck of a gorgeous game.

We always knew Intel's acquisition might repurpose Project Offset from a shipping product to a Larrabee tech demo, but we'd hoped an actual title would still see the light of day. Intel's statements cast fresh doubt over that possibility; even if Intel sold the PO engine back to the original developers (who have since launched Fractiv.com), at least some of the programmers are apparently pursuing new careers with Santa Clara. Fractiv has yet to comment on the situation or reveal if it's re-acquired its own software.